A look at Florida State

Stats by StatSheet.com

Ken Pomeroy's breakdown of the 'Noles

You may find this hard to believe--in fact I'm even having a hard time believing it as I type--but there are worse teams out there than the Pack at protecting the ball.

Florida State is just one of those teams.

(Continues)

The Seminoles are turning it over (depending on which stat house you pull from) about 24% of the time they possess it, which is atrocious. Think State's performance against Clemson every single game of the year.

You'd think that would be good news for the Pack, but as bad as State is at holding onto the ball, they're just as bad at pressuring it, ranking 339th (yes, six from the bottom of all Div. 1) in turnovers forced at just 16.1% per game.

So while it may not be the irresistible force meets the immovable object (perhaps in reverse), it will be interesting which side "wins" out in this battle for ball insecurity. My guess? a WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE lot of sloppy play.

Florida State's main weapon at guard will be Toney Douglas, who shoots the ball over 30% of the time for the 'Noles when he's in the game--which so happens to be nearly the entire game (35.4 mins/per). Consequently, Douglas is filling up the stat sheet quite well: 18.4 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 2.6 apg, 2.0 spg, 0.8 bpg.

I have an idea that Trevor Ferguson, based on the job he did on Oglesby in the Clemson game, could be called upon to be the defensive stopper against Douglas. It may work, but I imagine Douglas is a good bit more athletic than Oglesby and may eat him alive on drives to the basket. It will be interesting to see if Ferguson ultimately ends up defending Douglas or not; whoever draws that task will certainly have their hands full.

The rest of the FSU roster is big and solid...not a ton of points to be had amongst them (Douglas is the only player averaging in double figures), but five players averaging better than 6.8/game. Some names to look out for: senior Uche Echefu, the 6-9 forward who ranks among the nation's best at getting to the free throw line, and 6-8 freshman Chris Singleton who's getting plenty of minutes and also making plenty of trips to the free throw line.

If State were in another boat I might say it's too early to be playing the "must win" card--hell, we're just two games into the conference slate!--but there won't be many opportunities on the table for the Pack for conference wins this year, and this is one of them.